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Michael Davis

Michael Davis, a jazz musician in New York City, was wearing
a trenchcoat and fedora, like Sam Spade, when he was eight years old.

The new
book, "I Am Dandy: The Return of the Elegant Gentleman" (Gestalten), by
Nathaniel "Natty" Adams and photographer Rose Callahan, studies these
unconventional but impeccably-clad men for whom elegance is all.

"With
dandies, it's their whole being -- they couldn't exist any other way," Adams
told CBS News' Serena Altschul. "If they were on a desert island, they'd
polish their shoes with squid ink, and they'd use a fish bone as a tie pin."

Raymond Chu

Mickael Francois Loir

Mickael Francois Loir, a financial consultant and clothing designer in Paris, says it is easy to be fashionable or eccentric - but difficult to be elegant.

Credit: Rose Callahan

Cator Sparks

Cator Sparks, a Southern gentleman and editor in chief of themanual.com ("The essential guide for men"), admits he once wore Adidas sneakers (!), but on a trip to London became transfixed by the city's dandy gentlemen. Still, he's not beyond wearing a kaftan.

Credit: Rose Callahan

David Carter

David Carter, an eccentric dandy, is a London interior decorator and hotelier - he owns 40 Winks - who is also the city's "Lord of Pajama Parties."

For Carter, "dressing up" is not about being yourself, but being like an actor creating a character (and exhibiting an inner confidence to be able to withstand public heckling).

Credit: Rose Callahan

Domenico Spano

Clothing designer Domenico Spano says he has hope for the future of menswear: today fewer people on the street ask if he's in the Mafia.

Credit: Rose Callahan

Winston Chesterfield

Winston Chesterfield, a pianist and writer in London, says that being elegant catches a woman's eye.

Credit: Rose Callahan

Edward Hayes

When
asked if the rumor was true that he refuses to wear a bullet proof vest, New York
City attorney Edward Hayes said yes: "What happened was, I represent a guy
who beats his wife to death. Terrible, terrible man. I go to his house with the
cops, and the cop says, 'Put on a bullet proof vest.' I said, 'No way -- it'll ruin the fit of my
suit, and if the TV stations show up I'll look terrible!'"

Credit: Rose Callahan

Gay Talese

Author Gay Talese ("Thy Neighbor's Wife") has always had an elegant fashion sense, and it's come in handy: In the 1960s, when he reported on civil rights protests in the South, he kept tear gas at bay by covering his nose with his silk pocket square.

Credit: Rose Callahan

Michael Haar

Michael Haar, of Queens, N.Y., is a barber, disc jockey and radio host. A "vintageist," he drinks from a special mug designed to keep his moustache dry.

Credit: Rose Callahan

Sean Crowley

It does take work to be elegant.

Sean Crowley, a menswear designer in Brooklyn, once had an Anglophilic teacher who gave him extra credit for wearing ties and jackets to school. A collector of vintage objects, Crowley expresses an affinity for traditional English style, and owns between two and three thousand ties.

Credit: Rose Callahan

Patrick McDonald

Patrick McDonald (occupation: "New York Dandy") says that clothing is the paint with which he covers himself, like a canvas, but also that "dandyism can be an armor, attracting certain people and keeping others away."

Credit: Rose Callahan

Michael "Atters" Attree

English escapologist Michael "Atters" Attree, and his moustache, are photographed in his ornate Regency townhouse.

Credit: Rose Callahan

Ray Frensham

Londoner Ray Frensham, a "professional Bohemian," with top hat and monacle.

Credit: Rose Callahan

Massimiliano Mocchia di Coggiola

Massimiliano Mocchia di Coggiola, member of a family tied to Italian nobility, is a "gentleman of leisure" who says, "Dandyism is a life philosophy. It will never die."